Getting More Traffic To Your Site Through The Disqus Commenting System

Everyone knows that bloggers love to comment, primarily through the CommentLuv system- which as become quite popular amongst the various blogging communities.

But did you know that you can also use Disqus to comment on high traffic sites, which includes blogs, news, and a number of other types of sites?

Currently, it’s true.

All you need is a free Disqus profile where you can proudly insert a single link and even a description to any site you would like to. As far as I know, they also allow affiliate links! How cool is that?

[Please see the notes below about spamming before proceeding). Do not ruin it for everyone else. Or we will find you and… (LOL. just kidding / joking).]

I have compiled a small list of high traffic sites that use the Disqus commenting system:

A List Of High Traffic Sites Using The Disqus Commenting System

http://www.theepochtimes.com – This one has a good Alexa ranking but they may not always approve a comment. You should make nice, polite posts there if you want them to be approved. It is not a free-for-all commenting site, like some of those in the rest of the list.

http://edition.cnn.com – update – edition.cnn no longer displays your link with your post. Do not waste time commenting on any site that won’t display your link. Always check a site to make sure your link displays.

(if you know of others, please add to this list via the comment section below

Do NOT Comment Spam

Before you go off with that list and spew inappropriate comments all over the place, I want you to think long term for a moment. These sites can throw away this great comment system and start using something else tomorrow.

That something else may not be as cool as Disqus – meaning that they let you put a link on their site. If that were to happen and you lost the ability to leave a link it would be a bummer for the entire community.

In addition, you would lose any link value that was residual after the system was removed. I hope that is powerful enough incentive for you to think twice about what you are about to do.

Do not wreck it for everyone else, just because you can’t wait to get some spammy links out there.

Here Are Some Suggested Guidelines To Follow

1. Use a real picture of yourself in your profile. - People will feel more comfortable knowing that you are a real person with a real face and that you are NOT hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.

2. Write long and meaningful comments that are related to the article you are commenting on. – No one likes to see someone blatantly promoting something unrelated to the article. So, don’t do that! Take a few minutes and write a nice comment that will add to the discussion and show that you are a giver and not (just) a taker.

Give to the communities that you are trying to be a part of. If you abuse the system, your comments will probably be removed anyway and that would be a huge waste of your time and effort.

If no one can see your links, they are not worth much, are they?

Another benefit to posting long and meaningful comments is that they will stand out more. If your 10 line comment is situate between a bunch of one or three liners – who’s comment do you think readers’ eyes will be more drawn to you? – And look there! There is a handy link right to your website right by your name and picture!

3. Forget about Key Words – Seriously, keywords do not belong on these high traffic sites. Use your name – or if you are too scared – use a made up name – just make it ‘real’ name.

If you use keywords for your name, you are probably only going to hasten the moment when your comment has been flagged too often and the scrutiny of a moderator is going to come into play. When they see your profile has no picture or something related to your business and not you, plus your spammy comment and link, what do you think they will do?

Bottom Line – Post nice, long, thoughtful comments with your real name and without keywords!

4. Participate in The Conversation – The Disqus system will let you know when someone has replied to your comment. Commenting again in reply, which you can actually do via email without revisiting the site (another cool feature of Disqus), is a snap.

Should I Use Disqus On My Own Site?

That is totally up to you and it is not required that you implement Disqus on your own site in order to comment throughout the Disqus system.

Same, I love Disqus. Of course I don’t use WordPress either, so I don’t
have as nice of a free native commenting alternative. Still, I always
found Disqus ridiculously easy and provided people with a lot of choices
of how they want to comment.

This might be an okay tactic to get a few visitors to your site, but by no means are you grabbing hundreds of visitors per day. Just another way to get your URL out there, the more places the better I always say.

I like disqus so much. I have been using it for more than a year now. And I agree that it increases the traffic to your site since many disqus users just hang around and see as many sites as they can to socialize, help, and learn through commenting. Nonetheless, I would like to ask all commenters here if you have already encountered any major problem with using disqus? This will help me anticipate things with my account in case something goes wrong. So far, I dont experience any bad thing with it. But it’s quite important to anticipate always.

Blogging and commenting system is now popular as part of the SEO initiatives or to direct high quality links to the site. Disqus commenting system is an amazing program which is very use-friendly and includes unique themes and combination of other functional features. These themes can be easily modified based on whether the visitor of your blog makes use of the desktop and other mobile devices. An appealing post.

I hadn’t heard of Disqus before. I use Comment Luv plugin on my blog and it also helps drive organic traffic to my site. This plugin looks interesting, But I need to learn more about Disqus before implement it on my blog.

Great explanation of the benefits of using other commenting systems. I know a lot of blogs that have “gone over to the other side” so to speak using these types of commenting systems.

I know that as far as having all your comments incorporated into one place is very attractive for a lot of people but here is the major downfall I’ve encountered with those. A LOT of bloggers refuse to sign up with an account just to leave a comment. As for me, the reader is much more important then how many actual comments I get on a post.

I’m here to build relationships with my readers because I know down the road that will really benefit me. There are a lot of my blogging friends who refuse to comment on any blog that have Disque or Livefrye as their commenting platform. Personally, I would rather they visit my blog so I’m not going to take that chance. Heck, it’s not worth it to me. Kind of looks like it isn’t to you either!

Thanks Dave, great explanation for those who are eager to incorporate something like this into their blog. Hope you’re enjoying your day.

~Adrienne

P.S. By the way, your Twitter ID isn’t connected to your Tweet button so just in case I thought I’d let you know. If that’s not set up, you have no idea who has shared your post… Yikes!

I have seen some changes with disqus commenting system on many sites. Clicking on the name does nothing and clicking on the picture expands the profile. CNN have also changed it a bit where names are not clickable any more. No doubt it’s a good system, works well. There are so many premium sites using it. Can’t miss it. Its so easy to use as well.

Dave, thanks for the article on disqus and commentluv. As a new blogger I’ve been trying to figure out how to increase traffic to my site. I’m using wordpress so it sounds like commentluv is the better option for me. Looks like you went back to it, and removed disqus. Is that correct? Thanks!

Hi John, you can use Disqus without having it installed on your blog. I tried it for my blog and didn’t like it. but you can still use it to comment on other sites including the high traffic sites listed here. Thanks for your comment and your question.

When my blogs were earlier on Bloggers, I had installed Discus. However, when I switched to WordPress, I switched over to CommentLuv, which whether we believe it or not, does get more commenters ( I guess that’s why you haven’t switched over yet :))

I agree that you should leave quality comments and not just spam people’s post, and spend time reading the post before commenting. When you write lengthy comments from your heart without really thinking about keywords, your comments are surely going to be liked I guess. And yes, the comments on Discus and Livefyre too are saved and linked to your profile.

I was researching the best commenting platforms to use on a blog, so I came across this article, and I found it very helpful. There are so many commenting systems to choose from and the decision is not easy; i see your commenters are on different opinions as well. Disqus seems like a great choice, and I know from my experience of commenting on other blogs that it is also great in weeding out spam comments. I didn’t know it was so useful for getting traffic as well! Thanks for doing such a great job in explaining how to use it, and also giving us such great tips with all your posts!
Leonard

Hi Leonard, Yes it is a pretty good one. You can see that I personally still use CL here.

But the power of the Disqus profile and the ability to leave a link is pretty cool. Just keep an eye out some sites (Like CNN) are now not allowing the link. Aside from your profile, there is much less benefit now.

Hi Corky, that is very true. You won’t have that same level of control with Disqus. But, the idea, in my opinion, is to divert some people from higher traffic sites. Some will stick and return but many will not. It all depends on if you have something that interests them or not.

The right kind? I think it drives real people and to me, that is the right kind of traffic. If you are looking for specific niche oriented traffic, then it ‘might’ not be right. But I think there are other benefits – exposure being one of the biggest and best.

We have installed on our website & so far, its performing good.The list above would push more bloggers to take up the disqus commenting system, i believe.

I think the choice of commenting systems should depend on the type of visitors that a site receives.Since our site is job oriented & not all our visitors are tech-savvy, we preferred to go with disqus which we feel is best suited for first time commentors as it has one-click signon to their yahoo, facebook, google accounts.This also prevents spammers to stay at bay as most spammers dont want to link their social profiles when commenting.

CommentLuv wud be best suited for tech blogs as their visitors would know how to leave comments in there.

Yes, however, one can comment on disqus by simply setting up a disqus profile. There is not requirement to link your google or facebook profile to disqus to use it.

It does have a nice built in “flag comments” portion to it. I think it does help to protect against spam.

One aspect I like is that the comments are forwarded via email when a reply is made. The person can simply reply via email and have their reply posted to the site – without needing to go back to the actual site.

It is great to know about some of the big names using the Disqus commenting system – I have always stayed away from it only to not add one more comment to my blog. Is there any particular reason you are not using here as well?

i have heard of disqus commenting system, but have not used it before. i like the commentluv plugin and i use it on my site. i will try to use the disqus system too. you have given a good review about this disqus commenting system.

Hi Suresh, I have noticed that more people are using IntenseDebate. You have just reminded me that I should sign up to use that system too.

Changing that Disqus profile makes it easy to use an affiliate link. I have not done it myself. But I do use it to point directly to a product that I sell a the Toothy Grins Store as well as this site.

Great post David, I have both an account with both systems. I have been waiting on you to put up a new post I think it is important to let people know they do not have to get rid of CL. They can have both. I have intensedebate as well.